


Love

by indigo (indigo_angels)



Series: Mission Arc [19]
Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 14:34:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18802279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_angels/pseuds/indigo
Summary: Sometimes, all you have is each other.A companion fic to 'Change'. Mission 73.





	Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loves_books](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/gifts).



> Originally written, a long time ago, for loves_books, who wanted to see the team celebrating Christmas on deployment. Happy gift again, LB!

Hannibal’s keen eyes scanned the surrounding area, trying to pick Face out in the approaching gloom of twilight. The grey day added to their moods, travelling as they had done in almost silence all day long. That morning, the twenty fourth of December, had marked the eighth day in their trek through the mountains of Afghanistan, hot on the trail of deposed warlord Kohistani and his band of violent miscreants. The man was wanted for a string of barbaric crimes against his own people and seemed intent on making his name synonymous with terror across the whole region. The team had tracked him carefully, gaining all the time, cataloguing the tales they heard of his violence as they followed the swath of horror he cut through the bleak landscape.

 

But this morning had been the very, very worst. An entire village butchered in their homes, from the very youngest to the very oldest. Men, women, children, livestock, all of them killed and left to burn.

 

His team had been silent and professional as they had done what was needed from them, moving from shattered house to house like living ghosts among the dead. Hannibal knew that it was the children that cut BA the deepest, Murdock, raised by his grandparents, the elderly. But Face had just seemed stricken by it all, his eyes wide, his skin almost grey. Hannibal had seen too many sights like this over the years, he’d seen evidence of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Europe in the 1990s, but it was always a stark and powerful reminder of how truly appalling the human race could be to each other.

 

They’d struck camp a little over an hour ago and Face had brusquely volunteered to take the perimeter. Hannibal had let him go, knew he needed a little time to sort through the emotions in his head, but that ‘little time’ had expired now, now Hannibal needed to go and find him, bring him out of himself and help him to move on. There was nothing else that they could do, nothing but find Kohistani and bring him back for the Afghani authorities to deal with.

 

His eyes drew to the edge of a buff and there was a very familiar figure crouched in the dirt. Hannibal’s heart tightened at the sight and he quickly approached, making sure his feet sounded loud in the gathering gloom. He didn’t speak, there was nothing he could say, he just reached out and placed his hand on Face’s tense shoulder, letting him know he was there, letting him know he cared.

 

The response was instant. Face rose like a phoenix, turning towards Hannibal and folding in on him, his arms winding around his CO, twining them together. Hannibal grabbed him tightly, held him against his chest and kissed his dirty hair, feeling the body pressed up against his as it heaved with emotion.

 

It was dark by the time that Face pulled away from him, ready to take his own weight once more and finish the job they had to do, but Hannibal kept him close, just for that one second longer. “I love you,” he whispered, and he felt Face’s little intake of breath in the dark.

 

“I love you too, boss.”

 

They walked slowly back to the camp, the silence between them not as stark and desperate as before, and just before they broke into their little camp, the sweet smell of roasting meat drifted out to meet them, assaulting Face’s MRE-sick stomach.

 

“What you cooking, big guy?” he asked as BA’s bulk came into view crouched over the fire.

 

BA looked up, concern reflected in his dark eyes but he just smiled. “Caught a few hen-type things. Thought we needed a break from that bagged shit.”

 

Face glanced over at Hannibal, “What about the fire?” but Hannibal only shrugged.

 

“There’s no smoke. I think we can risk it tonight.”

 

They hadn’t had a fire in a week, cold food and cold sleep. Maybe Hannibal was right, maybe tonight they needed to warm their hearts.

 

“Ta dah!”

 

Murdock’s joyful call had them spinning to see him holding a bare branch, a branch that was surreally glowing green, as were Murdock’s fingers.

 

“Christmas tree!” he announced brightly. “Didn’t have any fairy lights so I cracked open a few of those glow sticks!  _And_ I’ve made a Christmas cake!” The cake was a stack of three stale Twinkies balanced precariously on a flat stone, slightly glowing finger marks on the sponge betraying whose handiwork it was.

 

Hannibal’s throat tightened as he saw the look on his boy’s face, all that horror melting away at last, replaced by love and gratitude so fierce that Hannibal had to touch him, just to prove that he was real, and he was Hannibal’s.

 

“You a fool...” BA grumbled as he started pulling the ‘hen-things’ apart, but they could all hear the affection in his voice.

 

They sat down around the little fire, Face leaning up against Hannibal’s legs and ate to the quiet accompaniment of carols that Hannibal had found by fiddling with the tuning of the radio. They couldn’t really spare the batteries, he knew, but with a bit of luck they would catch up with their angel of death tomorrow – if they did they would be back home within forty eight hours and they could have their own belated Christmas as Hannibal concentrated on wiping this mission from Face’s memory.

 

Finally the food was gone and they were all left feeling better for the warmth in their stomachs. Murdock was next out on patrol but just for a few minutes more they sat and finished the ‘Christmas cake’, not even BA mentioning the glowing finger marks on it and listened to a few more carols by the light of the dying fire and the glowing tree.

 

Much later on, after his own patrol was complete, Hannibal lay down in the space next to Face and pulled him close. Face moved automatically, even in his sleep, turning on his side and wrapping his arms around Hannibal, bringing that lump to his throat once more. This may not have been how Hannibal would have ever wanted to spend their Christmas, but to be with Face, like this, well, he would go to hell and back every year.

 

He just hoped he didn’t need to.


End file.
